NatWest Bank, bailed out by the people to the tune of £46 billion and still 39% Government owned, are using spurious statistics, poor consultation and erroneous assertions to shut down the last remaining and accessible bank between Hounslow and Chiswick. It’s the only one with a customer car park and also located within the Council’s London Road 30 minutes free Stop and Shop parking facility.
Last bank standing: NatWest, 486 London Road, Isleworth
No amount of online, video or telephone banking can replace a human face to face physical transaction whether elderly or any other citizen within the 30% without the means, online savvy or inclination or just likes going out.
NatWest Isleworth: Elderly customer with their carer drew up to the front door to use this most accessible of bank branches
Recent pavement surveys by NatWest customer and Isleworth resident, Madhuri Kapila, show buoyant footfall at 468 London Road. There has also been a keenness to sign this letter to letter to NatWest Head Office and, so far, 150 customers, many elderly, greatly concerned and fearful of the closure, have participated.
NatWest Isleworth: Open during convenient hours 5 days a week
Daily attendance at the branch, of late, shows around thirty customers per hour, more if ATM users are included, translating to at least 750 user per week. NatWest profits for 2023/24 show a 50% jump to £1.9 billion in the first three months of the year; why should the company need to close a long established and well used branch operating from Freehold premises?
NatWest Isleworth Branch: Night safe
All of the many shopkeepers Madhuri has spoken to (NatWest did not reveal of having spoken to any of our traders in its public relations pieces), are greatly against the proposal. They see the bank as an anchor business for London Road as well as a banking facility for them and everyone else.
Last Friday, Madhuri and I visited NatWest Headquarters at 250 Bishopsgate to present the collected letters but no one was available to receive them nor this additional letter to Dame Alison Rose, Group Chief Executive Officer of NatWest Bank..
Ruth Cadbury MP also wrote this letter to NatWest Bank asking for a meeting and for the closure to be withdrawn.
Recently publishing a booklet for bank branch visitors, NatWest used a mixture of pre, during and post pandemic figures, with obscure graphics, to justify their current stance. The decision really did appear to have been made prior to any real consultation and, responses from NatWest since seem at best repetative and standard public relations deflections but at worse, some may describe as lip service and sham going through the motions.
Please show your support in any or all of these ways:
NatWest Bank Isleworth: Please maintain the Welcome
Download, complete and immediately return this letter to Keep Nat West Bank Open via email KNWBOpen@gmail.com
Ask that the closure decision be reversed. Email or write to Dame Alison Rose, Group Chief Executive Officer, 250 Bishopsgate, London, EC2M 4AA: or email alison.rose@natwest.com and cc KNWBOpen@gmail.com
Monday 10 July 2023 at 10.30 am. Join a peaceful protest against the closure outside NatWest Bank, 486 London Road, Isleworth, TW7 4DD.
Tell your friends.
Thank you.
TL 9.7.2023
Tony Louki's Report Back 